Baby Teeth
by Yutaan
Summary: Tidus still believes in the tooth fairy, and not much else.


A/N: I meant to write this fic as soon as I finished playing KHII.

... Well, uh, several years later... at least it did _get_ written, eventually...

Anyways, it started out as happy fluff, like so many of my fics do, and morphed into something very different, as so many of my fics do. But it has Tidus and cuteness, so I guess I accomplished my main goal, when you get down to it.

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Baby Teeth

Tidus still believes in the tooth fairy.

It's not like he goes around announcing it – well, not anymore. When he first met her, he went around telling _everybody_, Wakka and Selphie and Kairi and Sora and Riku, Mom and Dad, Dad's friend Auron-with-the-awesome-red-coat, the people he met in the market when he went with Mom to buy vegetables for dinner, the tourists photographing paopu trees. He told them about the tooth fairy over and over, saying how she couldn't whistle, but she'd been impressed that he could, whistling through the new empty place in his grin. Mom had just smiled as she peeled the carrots, not listening. Dad, on the other hand, eventually stood up and stuck his big tanned face into Tidus's and bellowed, "Shut up, god, don't you ever shut up – there's no such thing." And so Tidus had cried and run upstairs and buried himself in his pillows, poking his tongue into the gap where his front tooth used to be. But Dad was wrong. There was such a thing.

Anyways, Tidus is bigger, now. He knows better. He'll be in high school this fall, and he can't count on Wakka to defend him from the older guys anymore. He can't count on things to stay the same – Selphie's been looking at him weird, mentally measuring his biceps and the muscles in his calves – Riku shot up and then filled out, until it was like his newly-broad shoulders were pressed against the edges of the world, and now he and Sora and Kairi are talking about some crazy-cool escape raft – Dad left in spring, and Auron went after him but hasn't called yet, and so now Mom started smoking again. Nothing stays anymore.

So he just keeps the fairy a secret. Sometimes he can feel that secret, a physical thing, a light, fluttery thing, like the weight of her pressed close to his chest. It's comforting. It's nice. He likes believing.

He's been a little worried lately, though. She used to come whenever he lost teeth, and he's all out of baby teeth now. And of course teeth get knocked out in sports all the time, but Mom got kind of upset when he came home last week with the latest molar clenched in his fist like a victory medal, and told Sora if he kept hitting Tidus like that he couldn't come play anymore. Tidus tried explaining that it wasn't Sora's fault, Tidus had dropped his guard and let the wooden sword whop his jaw - but that didn't really help. So that's it for the teeth.

He's pretty sure she'll keep coming, though - if he asks nice. Which he will. He's not good at asking nice for anything, except from her. Since she's so little, so fragile, since her weight is so light and trembly in his chest, it's easy to remember to be gentle and nice and stuff. So he'll ask, and he's pretty sure she'll keep coming. How many other kids would knock their teeth out just to talk to her?

He's pretty sure. Almost positive.

Even if it's been a week since he lost that molar, and she still hasn't come.

After dinner, he goes upstairs and showers carefully – he doesn't want to greet her reeking of sweat and with his legs crusted with sand and sea-salt. He towels his hair dry and stares into the foggy mirror. He suddenly wishes he looked different. He's not exactly sure what _way_ different, but - well, something. Something to mark the occasion, of him asking her to keep coming, even without the promise of teeth. What does she _do_ with all those teeth, he wonders, and snorts at the mental image of her fluttering around in a town built of teeth - like the big cities on the mainland, towers of teeth gnawing at the sky, long straight streets of dirty, stepped-on incisors, molars lined up like knobbly cobblestones. His fairy would go nuts trying to brush everything white. She likes things clean.

Back over to his room. Tidus checks that his last tooth is still under his pillow, folded nice and neat in a tissue. He plans things to say - "Where've you been?" and "It's great to see you," and "Have you been practicing whistling? You have? Hey, you got pretty good!" and "Hey, you know, I was wondering - now that I'm kinda out of baby teeth..." He straightens up his room, then throws some stuff back on the floor, just so she won't think he's trying too hard. Mom yells up at him about crashing around. He yells back about how old people are supposed to get deafer, how can she hear him at all. But he stops moving around, goes over to the window seat that Dad built back when Tidus was really little, which leans out over the water like a drunken old man about to heave, and plugs into his jumpy old CD player. He waits.

The sky goes from orange to lavender to the color of the ocean at its deepest. Stars start to come out. The CD ends, so Tidus snaps a new one in. That one spins and spins and ends too. He's too jumpy to pick a new one, so he starts it again. Mom comes upstairs, yawning. Her bedroom door clicks shut. There's a big moon tonight, so he can see the ocean, the little edges of light across the tops of the waves, going in and out and in and out underneath his window.

It's late.

The flutter in his chest changes a little, deepens to the sick, nervous hum that comes before a fight he's not going to win - Riku standing cold-eyed across the beach with a wooden sword, or Dad looking away from him, out the window and over the water and far away, where the bluebirds sing and the rivers run with whiskey.

The ocean goes in and out. The CD repeats, again and again.

Tidus falls asleep.

A crashing noise wakes him up. He automatically reaches for the window latch, grinning, saying, "What took you so -" Then the noise comes again, and he realizes it's not his fairy, it's coming from downstairs.

Adrenaline swells the muscles in his shoulders and neck. He grabs his sword and bounds downstairs on the balls of his feet, quiet, so Mom won't wake up and get scared. His grip on the wooden sword is tight, but not too tight, solid but not desperate. He moves powerfully. Forcefully. He throws open the porch screen door. A dark shape outlined against the stars and the knife-bright edges of the waves - hazy eyes glittering at him - the flutter in Tidus's chest turns to a thundering rush and he swings as hard as he can, calm, an adult protecting his home, his palms dry and tingling against the smooth wood of the hilt.

There's a loud _THWUCK_ sound. A roar. Tidus pulls back and finds his sword's broke: the top third's tilted at a crazy jagged angle. Then the attacker hits him in the side of the face. Something comes loose. It doesn't hurt, just feels like pressure all along his jawline - but his head bounces off the porch rail when he falls, and _that_ hurts, white-hot hurts. The attacker looms big in the darkness, and Tidus remembers his fights with the older guys, and tucks up in a ball for when the kicking starts. It doesn't. The attacker staggers over to the door and slaps a palm against the light switch.

He seems smaller in the light. Wide, square hands, ragged hair bound in a bandana that might have been red at some point, the big sulky mouth Tidus inherited. Dad stands over him, blinking blearily. "Kid," he says, then his face creases into a grimace. "What the fuck're you doing - nearly killed me with your - what is that, a bat? What kinda kid hits his old man with a bat?"

Tidus feels something rolling around in his mouth. He spits, sour. He could say he thought it was an intruder - somebody come to hurt Mom - somebody, some idiot, some stupid guy who doesn't know any better than to come over here and wreck Tidus's - except, wait, that _is_ -

Tidus spits again. A tooth rolls out onto the planks. Then he spits words. "Where've you been?" and "Who said you could come back?" and "Auron was _looking_ for you, he went and he hasn't even called, and the ocean's been all hell and he still went looking for you!" and "Nobody said, nobody said we wanted you - we don't want you - GET OUT OF HERE -" And then Dad mumbles something. Brushes him off. And suddenly Tidus isn't just yelling-mad, he's exploding with it - he jumps up and starts hitting at Dad with his open palms like a little kid. Dad smells like stale seawater and staler beer. A wide palm lashes out at Tidus, but it's a light swat - Dad's drunk, he doesn't know what he's doing - but Tidus is dizzy, and so he slips and falls again. An accident.

Mom has woken up, of course. Her silhouette stands in the doorway. She sees Tidus getting back up. Sees Dad staggering, angry and dazed. Sees the round white tooth skittering around the porch. She sees that, and she says to Dad in a clear, sharp voice, sizzling like the end of a cigarette, "You get the hell out of here, Jecht."

Things after that aren't quite so clear. But Dad keeps saying things in a hoarse voice, sometimes making awkward apologetic noises at Tidus, sometimes at Mom, sometimes growling. The tooth ends up in Tidus's palm. Teeth are always littler than they seem inside the mouth. The flutter in his chest is littler than before, too, less of a pulse and more of a breath. Just a tiny breath. He barely notices it until he touches his chest.

Eventually things clear for a second, and he's standing on the stairs, listening to Mom and Dad talk - Dad _in the house_, guess all the apologetic noises added up to something - smelling coffee to flush out Dad's ragged head, smelling the pungent ashiness of Mom's cigarettes. He can see part of her from the stairs. She's standing, looking out the window. She's holding her arms folded close to her body; he can see her elbow. Dad says something to her just then, and she turns to say something back, softer and cloudier than before.

Tidus goes upstairs. He shuts his door on the smell of coffee and nicotine. For a second, he thinks about putting this new tooth with the other one. Then he shrugs, drops it into the trash can, and gets into bed without wiping his face. He's tired, suddenly. Too tired to do anything. Too tired to even feel the little pulse in his chest. He swallows salt in the dark and feels old.

When he wakes up, his face is all swollen up, and hot. The worst part is just along his hairline, where his head hit the railing - it's like an egg attached to his forehead. He opens his eyes a little. Purple light. The sky is just starting to lighten outside his window.

Something touches his cheek. It's just the barest brush, but the touch is soft and cool. He shuts his eyes again, to enjoy it better. And to keep his eyes from welling up like some weepy little kid's.

"What took you so long, Yuna?"

The tooth fairy carefully strokes his swollen cheek. "I'm sorry. I... I missed you," she says.

Her voice is tiny and breathy and she pauses in weird places, and when he hears her speak, the flutter in his chest turns to something stronger, something bright and feverishly hot. He rolls over and opens both his eyes. She's sitting on his pillow, wearing that silly skimpy outfit that doesn't really suit her, knees tucked in modestly, gazing at him.

"Dad came back," he tells her, and then, as her face creases in understanding, "and I lost another tooth, but I threw it out. I didn't think -" But he can't say he didn't think she was coming. She hears anyway, though.

"Did you want me to come back? Most people... well, they -"

"Of _course_ I want you to come back," he says, a little too forcefully, because his jaw starts to throb.

Something changes then. She sits differently on the pillow. She looks at him, really looks at him. His breathing goes all shuddery, not like he's about to cry, but like he's been sprinting. This is not at all how he'd planned to ask her, he'd planned to be all suave and stuff, but instead he just lies there and trips over his own tongue and goes, "I'll always - I mean, you're - You're really great, and I always - I'll always want you to come back - if it's okay -"

"It's okay," Yuna interrupts him. She reaches up and smoothes out his hair. Her hand is no bigger than the tiny tooth in the trashcan. "It's okay. It'll be okay. I'll come back. I promise." And then she seals the promise: she purses her lips, kissing the air, and lets out a thin, reedy whistle.

Tidus falls asleep with her tiny hands cooling his face, listening to her whistle off-key. He sleeps like a baby.

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A/N: Oh Tidus. Your love-life is going to be so complicated. You should quite while you are ahead...

I liked writing Jecht; he's fun.

Anydennykennyways, hope y'all enjoyed! Please review!


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